


Hurts to Heal

by poselikeateam



Series: Higher Vampire Jaskier AUs [10]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Turned Into Vampire, Creature Jaskier | Dandelion, Depressed Jaskier | Dandelion, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Constipated Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Apologizes, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Has Feelings, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Loves Jaskier | Dandelion, Getting Together, Heavy Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Immortal Jaskier | Dandelion, Jaskier | Dandelion Has Anxiety, Jaskier | Dandelion Has PTSD, Jaskier | Dandelion Loves Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, M/M, Non-Human Jaskier | Dandelion, POV Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Protective Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Sad Jaskier | Dandelion, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Vampire Jaskier | Dandelion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:00:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25021312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poselikeateam/pseuds/poselikeateam
Summary: Geralt has noticed recently that Jaskier doesn’t seem to generate his own body heat. Unfortunately, that means they’re going to have to Talk About It.(CW for mentions of attempted suicide)
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Higher Vampire Jaskier AUs [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1754371
Comments: 30
Kudos: 1000
Collections: The Witcher Alternate Universes





	Hurts to Heal

**Author's Note:**

> A little different from my usual fare, this one is about dealing with trauma and accepting the love and help you deserve. Happy ending guaranteed, of course. And wow, the reception my last fic got blew my fucking mind. I’m glad it was something helpful for so many people ❤️
> 
> This started with the concept that higher vampires, being technically dead, do not generate their own body heat. Drinking blood can make them more lifelike, and they can absorb heat like a snake, but they are still undead. Then it went sad. Then it got better.

Geralt had never noticed it at first, but Jaskier can get alarmingly cold. For a while, they rarely touched, and when they did it was through layers of clothing and armour. It’s difficult to feel another’s body heat through leather gloves, after all, so Geralt would have had no way of knowing.

When they’d first met, he is pretty sure that there was nothing to notice. Jaskier was a little shit, and just about everything he said or did baffled or annoyed the witcher (sometimes both). He was odd, but not in an alarming sort of way. Ever since they met up again after their fight on the mountain, though, the bard has just been different. 

It’s odd, the way Jaskier never seems to react to any temperature, no matter how severe. Usually, the bard loves to complain about anything and everything, but it’s as if he doesn’t even notice heat or cold.

Well, that’s not entirely accurate. He doesn’t say anything about it, but his _body_ reacts to external temperatures. How many times has Geralt come back to camp only to find the other man sunning himself like an overgrown lizard? He seems magnetically attracted to any source of heat. 

It isn’t just heat, of course. If it’s too cold out, Jaskier becomes slow and sluggish, like he’s freezing in place. Geralt would suggest he move more to increase his blood flow, but that would require him bringing it up, which… he just doesn’t _do_ that. 

At first it’s irritating. Geralt honestly thought that Jaskier had been doing it to be dramatic, but when it hadn’t been followed with any sort of complaining… well, it started to concern him, a little. 

“Here,” he says, throwing his cloak more at the bard than to him. The whole thing settles over Jaskier in a way that makes him almost resemble a child pretending to be a ghost, and stays there for several beats, before he even reacts to it.

“Hmm?” he mumbles. “Why are you giving me your cloak?”

Fuck, now they have to talk about it. Geralt shrugs one massive shoulder, though the bard can’t see it, and grumbles, “Cold out.”

“Oh,” says the bard, as if in a daze. “Hadn’t noticed.”

Geralt hopes that Jaskier will start to warm up, but the cloak doesn’t seem to help. That’s more alarming than anything, because he knows it’s a good cloak. It’s well insulated and gets him through winters in the north, so it should be more than enough for a chilly, dreary autumn day such as this. 

“We’re stopping,” he decides the second they come across what looks like it will make a good campsite. 

“Why?” 

Geralt takes a deep breath in through his nose, out through his mouth, trying to ground himself. It won’t do either of them any good to lash out right now, even if that is his general response to any sort of negative situation or emotion. (It had been such a convenient response, when they’d first met. Now that he doesn’t want to push Jaskier away anymore, though, he’s had to train himself out of it. It’s, frankly, easier said than done.) Honestly, he’s worried. Jaskier looks, sounds, and is acting like he’s half-asleep, and Geralt doesn’t want him to die of hypothermia, even if it seems ridiculous in the current weather.

He can’t bring himself to say that, though. It’s not an argument he’s willing to get into when his emotions are high like this, and he honestly doesn’t know what would be worse — Jaskier arguing with him and trying to pry, or saying nothing and accepting it. The former is annoying, but the latter is concerning. So, it’s best if he just says nothing.

Of course, usually saying nothing in response to a question is the best way to get Jaskier to whine at him, to prod and cajole until he gets any sort of answer. Really, Geralt isn’t an expert on child rearing, but he has a very strong suspicion that Jaskier had been ignored by his parents a lot. 

The point is, when Jaskier doesn’t press any further, alarm bells start going off in Geralt’s head. 

Before anything else, Geralt starts a fire and steers Jaskier towards it. The bard leans towards the heat in a manner that Geralt suspects is entirely unconscious, and he’s half worried that the idiot’s going to catch himself on fire. 

Still, they need to get set up — or, well, Geralt needs to get them set up — so he sets himself to the task with an air of semi-urgency. He casts Yrden around their impromptu campsite, because he’s frankly assuming that he’s going to be too focused on figuring out whatever is wrong with Jaskier and keeping him alive to actually be suitably vigilant against any potential dangers.

When he turns back to Jaskier, though, the bard is acting almost entirely normal. Well, for him, anyway. 

“As much as I appreciate the rest, dear witcher, did we need to set up camp so early? Surely your old bones could have held out until we reach a town, with an inn and a proper bed. Oh, this fire is _lovely_ , though,” he babbles. 

It’s as if he has no idea how alarmingly disoriented he’d been not fifteen minutes prior. The longer he stays by the fire, the more energetic he becomes. 

It strikes Geralt at that moment that there is something very _off_ about his bard.

**

Geralt is now determined to figure this out. He could ask, but that would mean talking about it. He cannot over-stress how little he wants to have this conversation without knowing what, exactly, the conversation is even going to be. So, instead, he begins to notice things. 

One of the first things he notices is that no matter how much time they spend outside, the sun never seems to burn Jaskier’s skin. There are people who tan instead of burning, but Jaskier is not one of those, either. Nor does he develop freckles. The sun simply doesn’t affect his skin in any way. 

That’s not the only thing that’s peculiar, of course. The more time they spend in the wilderness, the more likely it is that the weather will affect Jaskier. It’s not something that he’s tested, so much as something that he’s observed. He isn’t going to avoid or linger in any town without good reason, but sometimes needs must. Sometimes a string of towns simply won’t have them (won’t have _him_ , but Jaskier has refused to waste his time, coin, or talents on a place that won’t appreciate his best friend — his words, of course). Sometimes a town will have a very involved contract or an abundance of them, so they will have to stay longer.

The point is that when Jaskier is amongst other people, he is more lively in every sense of the word. His cheeks are often flushed, he’s full of energy, he is pleasantly warm. On the other hand, when he hasn’t been around anyone but Geralt for a good while, he starts to change.

Not in the way that a werewolf might change, for example — he is physically still the same person. He just acts very, very different. 

His skin has an almost sickly pallor to it, he gravitates towards warmth like he’s cold-blooded—

Shit. He acts like he’s cold-blooded.

It sort of makes sense, except in all of the ways it absolutely doesn’t. All the evidence points to Jaskier being somehow unable to make his own body heat. Geralt has met people with poor circulation, but this is something entirely different. 

“Jaskier,” he says one night before he can stop himself.

“Yes, dear?” the bard answers absent-mindedly. It’s a warm night, but he still sits just a little too close to the fire as he works on his latest composition.

Well, in for a copper, in for a crown. “What are you?”

Jaskier’s fingers fumble, hitting a discordant note on his lute that has Geralt gritting his teeth. It is very rare for Jaskier to fuck up on his lute — honestly, Geralt is hard-pressed to remember another time that he’d heard it. 

“Don’t tell me my music is that bad. Or have you forgotten, in your excessively old age, that I am a bard?” he jokes, but it falls flat. There’s a note of fear in his voice, in his scent, and Geralt hates it. Of all the people who’ve never been afraid of him, well, Jaskier is the only one. He’d hoped that he’d never smell the sharp scent of fear on his bard, but deep down he’d always known that he would. 

He could drop it, he thinks. He could let Jaskier’s weak joke land, let him play it off, and never bring it up again. Only, he knows, and now Jaskier knows that he knows, and he can’t let this thing just linger between them. 

“I mean it,” he says. He hopes against hope that his tone is gentle, though he was designed to be the antithesis of gentleness. 

“Geralt, please,” Jaskier says in a strangled whisper, “don’t do this.”

The witcher shakes his head. “You don’t have to tell me,” he says, “but I know you aren’t human. And you know that I do. If you can ignore that, fine. I can too, but I don’t think it’s what you want.”

“I _want_ for it to never have been brought up,” he answers with a surprising amount of venom, of bitterness. “I want for it to never have _happened_.”

“And yet, here we are.”

“Fuck,” says the bard, long and drawn-out, as if he’s holding the note for a song.

“It’s new, then,” Geralt guesses. It’s odd to have their usual conversational dynamic inverted like this, for Geralt to be the one trying to keep the conversation going and Jaskier to be monosyllabic and reticent with his thoughts. He almost has a new appreciation for how hard the other has had to try to get him to engage in the past.

Almost.

“It’s new,” he continues, “or at least, it’s not… you were human, before.”

The way Jaskier tenses is not lost on the witcher, thanks to his enhanced senses. 

“I’m human _now_ ,” he insists. “I’m— I’m still _me_ , Geralt.”

“I know,” the witcher answers soothingly (he hopes it’s soothing. He’s so bad at this, but he’s trying his best.) “You are still you, but you are also something different than you once were.”

“Fuck you,” the bard answers venomously, voice trembling in a way that Geralt has only heard once before, long ago on a mountain after an ill-fated hunt for a dragon.

He needs to change tactics, he realises. “You aren’t human anymore, but neither am I. It doesn’t mean you aren’t a _person_ , Jaskier.”

Jaskier is crying. The way his breath hitches, the smell of salt in the air, the subtle trembling of his shoulders — Geralt notices all of it. 

“It’s okay,” he continues. He’s not used to comforting someone, but for Jaskier he is willing to try. After all, the bard has been there for him for so long, and through so much, it’s the very least he can do. 

Unfortunately, that does not have the effect he had hoped. “Is it, witcher?” spits the other. “Is it really? Why the fuck do you need to know, anyway? So you can kill me? I’m just another beast to slay, is that it? Well, good luck. I’m pretty fucking hard to kill, now — believe me, I’ve _tried_ , over and over, and—”

“You’ve _what_?!” 

Geralt is honestly _furious_ now. Who the fuck does Jaskier think he is? It’s admittedly complicated — Jaskier is his own man, yes, but he is Geralt’s friend. Geralt has so few people he cares about and he is determined to protect them at all costs. How can he protect Jaskier from _himself_? How can he retaliate against the person who’d tried to hurt his bard if that person is the man himself? It’s— it’s horrifying, honestly. 

Jaskier is good and kind. He is the ray of sunshine in a thunderstorm that forms a rainbow. He is— he is _everything_. 

“I’ve tried to end it, Geralt,” the bard croaks, utterly unrepentant about that horrible fact. “I’ve tried so fucking _hard_ , but I can’t. I just fucking— I come back, good as new! I can’t _die_!”

“Good!” Geralt growls. “Don’t you fucking _dare_ try that shit again!”

“Or _what_ , witcher?” Jaskier seethes. “How could you possibly punish me? I’m a monster, and I can’t fucking die! What else could you possibly take from me!?”

“Gods damn you, you absolute fucking idiot! I can’t lose you! Don’t act like it would be anything but a fucking tragedy if you were gone!”

The clearing is silent. Two men who are no longer men, not quite, stare at one another. Tensions are high, emotions rage. Neither knows just what to say.

Jaskier, for once acting like himself in all of this, is the first to speak. “Geralt,” he says, voice thick with emotion, “I’m a vampire.”

“I don’t care.” 

It’s true. Honestly, he had figured it out when Jaskier had said that he couldn’t die, but… that wasn’t the important part of that specific revelation. What Jaskier is doesn’t matter one whit to him, but who he is? Gods, he is everything to Geralt. 

“Then why ask?” Jaskier demands, not for the first time. “Why— why bring it up, if it doesn’t fucking _matter_?”

“It doesn’t matter,” answers the witcher, “but _you_ do.”

“I _don’t_.”

“You do,” he insists. “I asked because I— I care for you. I was… worried. If I knew what you were, I would know what was going on. I would know why you can’t make your own warmth, why you slow down in the cold. I would know how to _help_ you.”

Silence descends upon them once more. Uncharacteristically, Geralt finds it nearly unbearable. 

“I… It was after the mountain,” Jaskier whispers. Geralt is sure he can only hear it because he is a witcher, but he almost wishes that he couldn’t. “I was so… hurt. Broken. I didn’t— I didn’t care what happened, really. I was reckless, moreso than usual, I mean. The things you said to me… they hurt, Geralt. You weren’t the first to say such things, but… I suppose I had hoped… 

“I don’t even remember how it happened. I just remember waking up… changed. There was this— this thirst, this _unbearable_ thirst. The first person I came across, I—” 

He breaks off, unable to hold back the sob that bubbles forth from his throat. 

“I don’t remember it,” he continues. “I don’t know what happened. I just— I remember seeing him, and then… then nothing, and then… I don’t think I killed him, but I… I can’t be sure. I-I ran. I couldn’t…”

Geralt has never been the hugging type. Physical contact that isn’t sex or fighting generally baffles him. Now, though, he wraps his arms around his friend as if it is the most natural thing in the world. It feels like it is, and maybe that should frighten him, but he honestly doesn’t care. 

“I’m sorry,” says the witcher. “I shouldn’t have blamed you for my mistakes. It wasn’t right. And because of me, you’re hurting now. You’ve been hurting. Nothing I say can make up for that, but if you’ll allow it, I will be there for you.”

“Why?” the bard sobs. “I’m a _monster_ , Geralt. You kill things like me. I want— I wish you would. I wish you _could_.”

“I would never.”

“Why?” Jaskier asks again.

“I am selfish,” answers Geralt. “You are the best thing that has happened to me. I’m an idiot. I thought… I thought that if I drove you away, it wouldn’t hurt as much as it would when you decided to leave.”

“You _are_ an idiot,” the bard says into Geralt’s shoulder. “Twenty-two years by your side, and you still thought I would leave?”

“I’m not good at accepting good things,” he admits. “And you are the best of all.”

“Even now? Knowing what I— what I’ve become?” 

“Especially now,” Geralt insists. “As a human… you would have left, because you would have aged and _died_. Aside from the way it’s hurt you, I’m selfishly glad for this. You won’t… we have _time_.”

“Geralt,” warns the bard, “don’t… don’t say things you can’t take back. Don’t get my hopes up.”

“I don’t want to take it back. I _won’t_ want to take it back. I love you, Jaskier. I’ve just been too stupid and selfish to admit it. But even if it means that you’ll leave, you need to know. You need to know how much you _mean_ to me,” says the witcher. 

He doesn’t know why it’s so easy to say, after all this time spent holding it back from even himself. Perhaps it’s the horrific realisation that Jaskier had— that he’d almost lost him. That if not for this change he’d been forced through, Jaskier would almost assuredly be dead by now — if not by his own hand, then by the swinging scythe of time. 

Jaskier is crying again, sobbing with abandon into the witcher’s shoulder, but he is making no move to pull away. Indeed, he is clinging to Geralt’s tunic, pressing himself as close to the witcher as he physically can. 

“I’ve— I’ve loved you for— for so _long_ ,” he sobs, nearly unintelligible even to Geralt’s enhanced senses. “I thought… like this… I’m a _monster_ , Geralt. Y-you _can’t_ —”

“I can,” answers the witcher, “and I do, and you _aren’t_. You aren’t the only vampire I know. You aren’t a cruel man, Jaskier. The worst monsters I have ever faced have been human. What you are, what you’ve become — it doesn’t _matter_ , do you hear me?”

It will take more than this one conversation, he knows. After all, Geralt had gone through something very similar, once upon a time. He knows how difficult it is, to be stripped of one’s humanity, to have no one to go to for comfort. 

Jaskier had been his comfort, and it had not been too late. The bard had seen the broken man that he was and cared for him, lovingly pieced him back together, healed deep, emotional scars that had been inflicted long before the bard himself had even been born. It is no hardship, now, for Geralt to do the same. 

It will not be easy. He knows from experience, after all. This kind of self-loathing is not something that can be solved with one talk, with sweet words, even with love. It will take time, and effort, and discomfort, and all sorts of difficulties and unpleasantness. 

Geralt, though, is no stranger to difficulties and unpleasantness. And for once, it will be worth the effort. The beast he has to slay now is in Jaskier’s thoughts. It may never go away. But every time it rears its ugly head, Geralt will be there to confront it.


End file.
